E. B. White's greatest stories, asides, essays, jokes, and tall tales about the city he arguably saw clearest, loved best, and skewered most mercilessly.
Over more than fifty years at the New Yorker, E. B. White came to define a kind of ideal American prose: clear, casual, democratic, and urbane. He also did more than any writer to define his favorite city. His classic Here Is New York captured a moment in the life of Manhattan with precision and love
but his was no fleeting infatuation. In New York Sketches, the first collection of his casual pieces about the city, White ranges at whim from the nesting habits of pigeons to the aisles of a calculator trade-show on Eighth Avenue, from the behaviour of snails in aquariums to the ghosts of old romance that haunt a flower shop or a fire escape or an old hotel. These sketches, some less than a page long, many written for a laugh, or in response to the news of the day, show us White at his most playful and inventive.
New York Sketches is a welcome diversion for every New Yorker
native, adoptive, or far from home
and a perfect introduction, not only to what White called 'the inscrutable and lovely town,' but to the everyday enchantments of one of her fondest reporters.
By:
E.B. White
Foreword by:
Martha White
Imprint: MCNALLY EDITIONS
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 215mm,
Width: 127mm,
Spine: 13mm
Weight: 163g
ISBN: 9781946022738
ISBN 10: 194602273X
Series: McNally Editions
Pages: 152
Publication Date: 12 March 2025
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Foreword by Martha White MANNERS Notes & Comment: July 16, 1932 Defense of the Bronx River Notes & Comment: February 18, 1928 Notes & Comment: November 29, 1952 Definitions Notes & Comment: July 3, 1954 Notes & Comment: March 24, 1945 Window Box Notes & Comment: December 4, 1948 Notes & Comment: July 17, 1954 Notes & Comment: November 5, 1949 Notes & Comment: November 29, 1952 Notes & Comment: July 3, 1937 Notes & Comment: February 19, 1943 The Rock Dove Notes & Comment: May 11, 1935 Lines in Anguish Daisy at One Fifth Ave Daisy at Schrafft’s Interview with Daisy Notes & Comment: October 6, 1923 The Gastropods The Wings of Orville Reading Room Notes & Comment: January 16, 1937 Notes & Comment: January 6, 1951 The Lady Is Cold MEMORIES & INVENTIONS Obituary Business Show The Hour of Letdown The Street of the Dead The Retort Transcendental Child’s Play Journeys The Hotel of the Total Stranger Goodbye to 48th Street Gramercy Park Getting Away Notes & Comment: June 11, 1955
Elwyn Brooks White (1899-1985) was born in Mount Vernon, New York, the youngest of six children. He is best known today for his classic children's books Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little; he was also among the best and funniest American prose stylists of the twentieth century. Martha White, granddaughter of E. B. White, is a writer and editor. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, and many other publications.
Reviews for New York Sketches
"""His voice rumbles with authority through sentences of surpassing grace. In his more than fifty years at the New Yorker, White set a standard of writerly craft for that supremely well-wrought magazine. In genial, perfectly poised essay after essay, he has wielded the English language with as much clarity and control as any American of his time.""-- ""Some of the finest examples of contemporary, genuinely American prose. White's style incorporates eloquence without affectation, profundity without pomposity, and wit without frivolity or hostility. Like his predecessors Thoreau and Twain, White's creative, humane, and graceful perceptions are an education for the sensibilities.""-- ""Washington Post"" ""The variety of subject matter to be found in these graceful pages is enormous. But no matter what his subject, Mr. White always writes about it in a prose that is a joy to read."" -- ""New York Times"""
